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How did you come up with The DeLay Rankings? What did you measure?

The Delay Rankings measure how close a member of Congress is to Tom DeLay. With all the scandals swirling around DeLay, many Americans are asking why so many of their elected officials have remained silent about DeLay’s continued leadership in Congress. The DeLay Rankings shows why this may be: Too many members of Congress are in DeLay’s pocket.

We base The DeLay Rankings on six measurements that we add together to create a composite score. See methodology for detailed information on how we compiled The DeLay Rankings.

Why are you measuring closeness to Tom DeLay and not another member of Congress, such as House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) or Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)?

Tom DeLay is a walking scandal and a national embarrassment, yet his colleagues in Congress continue to protect him. Why do they do this? Because they owe him. DeLay uses his PAC, ARMPAC, to spread cash around; he uses his power to determine whether their legislation lives or dies, and so on. With all the attention focused on scandals in Washington, DeLay is the poster child for what is wrong in politics. It seems appropriate that other members are held accountable for how close they are to DeLay.

We do have a big problem of money in politics and lobbyists influencing our elected officials, and it’s not confined to one party or the other. But Tom DeLay is the best – or the worst – example of what’s wrong.

How did you select the items to add into the composite ranking score?

We looked at several different factors for which we could categorize a large number of members of Congress using an objective scale. Did they vote with DeLay or not? Did they receive money from DeLay’s PAC and if so, how much? Other factors, such as attending fundraisers with DeLay, are difficult to provide fully accurate data, so we stuck to what we could verify.

All the Republicans are on the top and all the Democrats are at the bottom. Does this really tell us anything new? Don’t Democrats vote with other Democrats and Republicans with Republicans?

Tom DeLay is certainly closer to Republicans than to Democrats—that is only natural. But while party members often vote together, sometimes they don’t..That said, remember that voting records are just one of the measures that feeds into the DeLay Rankings. We use a variety of measures so that we can develop a more accurate description of how close any one Member of Congress is to Tom DeLay.

My representative is ranked in the 100’s. Does that mean he or she is close or not close to Tom DeLay?

That’s like asking if it’s okay if your representative is only a little bit unethical. How close to a walking scandal do you think your representative should be? That’s your call.

Will you be updating The DeLay Rankings?

Yes. Reports for DeLay’s legal defense fund and his PAC are filed periodically, and we’re likely to update the other categories, too. If there are major shifts then we will inform people. If you want to be notified, sign up for our email list here.

I think more people should know about this. How do I share it with others?

Great – feel free to send the website www.InDeLaysPocket.com around via email. You can also write letters to the editor of your local paper to highlight how your member of Congress scores. Post the website with your analysis on local or national weblogs or on on-line comment boards.